


every captive soul

by Lizzen



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8399749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lizzen/pseuds/Lizzen
Summary: How does one learn how to heal, to manage, to live; how to be happy and unafraid but still terribly yourself?  Post season 3





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldfinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfinch/gifts).



> This was a lovely chance to almost remix something I wrote in 2014 for this fandom; just a little, just enough. Thanks to A, as always. 
> 
> for: goldfinch in the Femslash Exchange 2016

“I don’t want to die,” Alana whispers into her skin.

In the dark, quiet, quietly, Margot speaks: “We can’t live forever.”

*  
The world is an open door to a Verger, but she uses cash where she can – hard to trace, hard to track. The lions are dead, or so says the news. Jack is not necessarily sure on the subject, and Alana only believes in hard, scientific proof. Of course, Dr. Du Maurier is missing; her house empty yet again and her person vanished.

So, Margot spends, and spends, and somehow, in some way, a life forms.

*  
But, nothing staves away the nightmares; no, no. They still linger.

*  
There’s a certain beauty to Cinque Terre that is unparalleled in the rest of the world. An exquisite coastal scene, dramatic in views and ancient of days. And it’s quite difficult to get there by foot, car, train, or ferry. Rapunzel’s tower amidst the stunning Mediterranean seaside and obscured by determined tourists.

They have rooms in two of the villages, and access to a cabin in the woods. Margot arranges for guns, neatly hidden, and men, well paid. Darkness seems to follow her steps so she has learned to have teeth. And to know when to bare them.

After all, she has so much to protect.

*  
A trio of women handle the state of her affairs. They each live across the world, separate from each other, that is, other than their daily communications. If one was to go missing, there are protocols in place. Protocols to save, to secure, to rebuild and replace.

One of them operates in nearby Florence; for who would look for any trace of the Verger money in a known place to Lecter?

Alana asks, “Do you trust these women?” and Margot has an answer.

“With my money, yes. With my son’s life?” And then she is silent.

*  
Morgan Verger loves the language. He seems to suck it up greedily and speak it with the ease and elegance of a tiny little princeling. His feet dance along the old cobblestones and his fingers reach for her, tugging at her jacket to beg for kisses and promises of gelato.

A thought, one thought is her constant companion: will he have his uncle’s temperament, or desires? Will the Verger heir carry on Mason’s disposition? Is it true, is it true that blood will tell?

What she can see, what is true: the calculation of his stares, the quickness of his tongue, and the warmth of his smile. What she can see is the echo of his mother.

*  
Alana’s wardrobe change is as extreme as her last. But she explains, explains in full how she found Dr. Lecter in Florence. How one can be traced via characteristic purchases.

So she wears silks and airy linens; floating dresses fit for coastal living.

It takes getting use to; the soft edges around Alana’s sharp features, a fluttery feminine look. A little thrill rises in her throat when she sees her, this strange cognitive dissonance.

Margot likes her better naked anyway; skin to bare skin is something familiar, something reassuring in the dark.

*  
Sex isn’t the easiest with a child in the other room, but they manage a healthy routine. It’s important to have this, this real intimacy with someone she trusts. Someone she trusts with her body, someone she trusts with her heart. And her heart beats, a drum in her chest; it beats as strong as a lioness.

Margot loves to linger between Alana’s legs, mouth and tongue pressed against that trembling wet heat. Taking her time makes Alana keen with misery, desperate for relief, and it’s as amusing as it is satisfying. She likes to know that Alana needs her, wants her.

There is a certain kind of safety in that knowledge.

*  
She remembers: _You’re all I have. And I’m all you have._

Her body is marked, a living monument of pain inflicted by a man long dead. Her heart even more so. There is something written inside her, a deep sort of etching that never goes away, and it leads her to these thoughts: she misses Mason, just a little, just enough to know how damaged she is.

When Morgan looks up at her with bright eyes, a beautifully eager expression, she feels at ease before she remembers.

*  
Fear can rot you; it seeps into your bones and makes them brittle. Fear can poison daily interactions, random thoughts; its insidious pathways strengthen throughout your mind – if you allow it.

Fear is an old friend of Margot Verger; an old, old friend.

*  
There’s little opportunity for horseback riding, so she takes up running. Beating her feet against the winding ancient trails and breathing in the cool air; a refreshing exercise and a little escape. She’s never alone, with the many locals and tourists around her and her security detail at her tail, and she likes it that way. There’s nothing she fears more than being vulnerable, than being exposed.

But as each foot hits the ground, one after another, she knows she’s running from someone, running away.

*  
The living predator seems less dangerous than the dead one; and yet, here she is with the most advanced security money can purchase. But there is a kind of relief in knowing if it happens, if they are found: the why, and the how. Mason was so much more unpredictable; Dr. Lecter’s urges are far easier to understand.

Alana’s urges are less easy to understand; a curious sort of survivor of Dr. Lecter with her distant stare and her dark thoughts and her intense desires. There is the occasion, now and then, when Margot is frightened by her, even just a little.

Sometimes Alana says: “I used to be so kind.”

*  
They visit Florence frequently; it is, after all, the most beautiful city in the world. Margot cultivates a taste for it; a desire to stare at the beauty of the David, the magnificent grandeur of the Duomo, the chaos of Medusa’s frozen features in La Piazza della Signoria.

But inevitably, she finds herself in front of Artemisia Gentileschi’s _Judith and Holofernes_ , staring openly and for a long, long time. There, there she finds a kinship that warms her to the bone. To her, it’s better than the Caravaggio, or the stunning Donatello bronze in the nearby Palazzo Vecchio. Perhaps because a woman painted it, a woman felt it. Wanted to feel a man’s death by her hands. 

It’s an indulgence, she knows. 

*  
There’s a certain magic in a Brunello di Montalcino, with its smell of dark cherry and earth, and Verger money can pay for bottles of the 2007. 

For, with enough of this sangiovese grape, a woman can sleep the dreamless sleep of the dead. But sometimes the mind rebels, the mind reminisces on the thoughts and feelings she thought she put to rest.

The grief of torture.

The horror of discovery.

The thrill of murder.

*  
When it happened, when they did it, there was a soaring sensation within her heart, a bright light, a hope in the darkness. It was a bitter bliss she tasted in her mouth. She wished then, and she wishes now it had taken longer, a lengthy sort of act where a man thrashes for a long time before it all plateaus, before he becomes still.

When it happened, when they did it, she looked to Alana and found herself bound forever, an unshakeable dependency. And that was a pleasure too.

*  
“Are you happy?” Alana asks.

There is something indignant that immediately rises in her throat but the words stick in her mouth. So, she holds her tongue and considers the question.

“Are you?” Margot says instead.

Alana leans in close, close enough to kiss and breathes in slowly before pressing her lips to Margot’s cheek. “As long as I have you.”

*  
They dance, they dance so often after dinner that Morgan expects it, demands it if they don't. Alana holds her close and they each hold onto Morgan’s little hands, swaying together to music real or imagined. The broad smiles and shining eyes are mirrored in each face, and love is absolute.

If there is a target in their backs, a true expiration date to this sweet life of theirs, Margot can live with it.

-


End file.
